iMac and bootcamp question

[Escape-To-88]

Hi all,
Was planning to get a P.C to use as a home media centre of sorts, but budget allowing I'm now considering an i5 27" iMac.

Having not used Macs for 3-4 years I had a questions about bootcamp as I still may require a few windows programs. I wondered if I install bootcamp and Windows 7, I'll get the same Windows performace as an equivalent P.C? I.e. Can I run games, emulators etc. as I would on a Windows P.C? I know there are obviously Mac versions of certain softwares etc. but just checking really.

Cheers

[Brad]

Yep. All Bootcamp does is emulate a BIOS (Macs have no bios as such). In fact (I'm gonna sound like an Apple fanboy here) my 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo Macbook runs Win7 faster than my 3GHz Dual Core work pc does.

In addition, if you get Parallels (VirtualBox might do this too, not sure) then you can run your bootcamp partition virtually too. So, if you need to just quickly run a Windows program but don't need full power then you can run it from OSX rather than having to re-boot into Windows.

[Escape-To-88]

Ah thanks a lot for that mate, assumed that to be the case. And I have also heard of other Mac users claiming of increased speeds regarding Windows 7, so perhaps justifed fanboy-ism

[egparadigm]

When I used to use Win XP on my Macbook I had a very good experience with it. Only thing that you need to do to make sure it all runs swimmingly is to run the OSX install disc from Windows – it installs all the drivers for the hardware setup you have. Once that's installed it runs a Windows version of Apple Software Update to keep you current.

[GluedOnBeard]

I am getting a new 27" Mac to start my UDK development, would it be best to install bootcamp then use vmware for quick tasks?

[Escape-To-88]

Cheers for the confirmation MMPat

[capcom_suicide]

I am getting a new 27" Mac to start my UDK development, would it be best to install bootcamp then use vmware for quick tasks?

Exactly. Bootcamp for any CPU/GPU/IO intensive tasks.

Bootcamp makes your intel box a Windows PC; You can even replace the Bootcamp GPU drivers with AMD Mobility ones if you like.

I have a mid 2010 iMac and am delighted by Bootcamp for games.